Applying the Agile Manifesto to People Management

I was a senior software developer at Dupont Pioneer when the transition to Scrum and Agile came sweeping through the company. It wasn't a huge shift for us as we were already working in an iterative manner. It did put a larger focus on building structure into the process and put a larger focus on working together as a team. Over the next several years, as I navigated through various roles, I absolutely fell in love with the principles of Agile.

In this article I will talk through applying the Agile Manifesto to people management.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

This is a no brainer for me. While processes are a necessity, especially working in a large company, as a manager my I try to limit my focus there. Spending time with my employees (face to face when possible) trumps everything else on my schedule.

Even with all of the communication and information sharing tools that we use today (Email, collaboration tools like Teams, Scrum boards, Confluence. etc.) you cannot replace the value of face to face interaction. Whether a virtual call or in-person, the ability to see and read non-verbal communication is just as important as the words shared.

Working software over comprehensive documentation

This one is a little more obscure, but I'm going to swap out "working software" for "working relationship". Get started early on this and work on it often. As mentioned in a previous article, each employee is unique meaning each relationship will be unique. Find a way to work effectively with your employees, but don't stop there. Try things, get feedback often, and change your approach and future actions based on that feedback. And repeat.

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

I guess in this case, we will say that the employee is the customer. As a manager, my job is not merely to give my engineers an endless lists of tasks to complete. I need to listen to what they say and pay attention to how engaged they are in their work. Identify opportunities that may interest them and bring it to them as a conversation. Share suggestions and explore what they like and where they want to go in their career. Most importantly, listen more than you speak.

Responding to change over following a plan

When I first became a manager, I was not prepared for how frequently things changed. New corporate policies, different managers, people leaving the team and onboarding new team members, projects, project managers, promotions. So many things! It quickly became clear that learning to respond to change quickly and positively not only made things easier on me, it took pressure off of my engineers as well. The absolute best tool that I have found for responding effectively to change is transparency and communication. Don't hide the potential impact that change will have from your employees or from your manager. Accept, adapt, and move on.

Conclusion

It is clear that there is value to managing in an agile manner. Similar to what we expect of our engineering teams, we too can focus on continuous improvement and decreasing the length of the feedback loop.